'The Voice': Erin Willett, Pip make friends in 'Battle'

Erin Willet (left) and Gwen Sebastian perform in the "Battle Rounds" of "The Voice." (photo by Lewis Jacobs/NBC)

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Fourth and final "Battle Rounds"
episode airs Monday at 8 p.m. on NBC

Behind the Screens with Joshua Maloni

It's no secret the singers on NBC's "The Voice" find the
"Battle Rounds" cringe-worthy. It's just not fun sending teammates home.

"Yeah, it's hard. It's a hard round," said Team Blake's Erin
Willett. "And it was a lot more difficult for me than I thought it was going to
be, I guess for me emotionally, because you don't want to send someone home that
you're really close with."

Erin and Gwen Sebastian, whom she defeated in the third
"Battle Rounds" episode, became close during the reality singing competition.

"You are standing right next to your competition, and you're
singing the exact same song. For me, I had a great (relationship) with Gwen. We
became very close, especially with the tragic situation that was going on with
me right at that time," Erin said. She was dealing with the death of her
father, who passed away one week before she squared off with Gwen. "You know,
she was there with me in my hotel room. She was always one call away. She would
check on me right before I went to bed. So for me, I -- me and Gwen, like, I
have (a friend) now; I have a sister, you know?"

The "Battle Round" episode wasn't any easier for Team Adam's Pip, who outshone
Nathan Parrett.

"Me and Nathan actually became really good friends at the
very beginning of this competition," Pip said. "And I actually ended up moving
to LA at the very beginning, and he became one of my roommates. And so, when we
found out we were paired up in battle, it was kind of this shock and, kind of,
we thought it was going to be this awful thing."

The silver lining for these singers -- in addition to moving
on to the live round -- is that their "Battles" brought out their best (and that
of their friends, too).

"In the end, it kind of made us be able to commit to the
performance even more," Pip said. "And because we were such good friends we
could -- we really could work the song a lot more, because we didn't have to,
like, kind of make time to work out what we were going to do in the song. And
it kind of just organically came in normal settings. We would just be like, 'Oh,
you know, we should do this here,' just like over dinner or something. And so I
think it helped us make the performance as good as it was. It was actually a
blessing in disguise."

Erin knows Gwen is happy for her, as she would be happy for
Gwen had the result been different.

"At the end of the day, I feel like when you have such mutual
-- for me, at least -- when you have (mutual) respect for each other, you're just
happy for the other person. And I know that Gwen was genuinely happy for me. And
if I had gone home, I would have been feeling the exact same about her."

"You realize that it's not in your hands, and so you can't
do anything about it," she said of the "Battle Rounds." "All you can do is give
your (best) performance."